hey i was just wondering how many calories i should eat if i want to mostly lose weight by lowering my calories and not exercising? i currently eat 1450 calories but im maintaining my current weight and not dropping. if i use my treadmill for 30mins-1 hour a day i lose a bit over 2 pounds a week but i dont want to use it everyday because im really bored of it (i still use it but meh) i want exercising to be a bonus to my weightloss efforts and not the only way i can lose weight..
ive read that you can lose weight just by lowering your calories but im stuck at my current weight and i know i dont go over about 1450 and its getting defeating. ideally i would like to lose 2lbs a week.. must i stop being lazy and workout an hour a day to accomplish that or should i lower my calories even more?

You may have hit a bit of a plateau if you haven't been losing weight at 1450 because that should be low enough to lose weight without exercising. I went from 211-180 eating 1650 calories a day and not exercising, I lost about 1.5 pounds a week.

How long have you not been losing? It may just be normal body fluctuations, TOM, or water retention if it has been less than a week.

You can try calorie cycling (1800 one day, 1200 the next then 1600, etc.) to see if that does anything for you. Sometimes we just need to trick our bodies!

If you want to lose 2 lbs per week, you will need to start exercising. Your calorie requirement will depend in part on your age. I'm guessing that your under 50. Given your current height and weight, if you're eating at 1450 with nominal exercise, you should lose around 1 lb per week, on average. Of course, you won't lose 1lb every week...since weight will fluctuate and, as said above, you will hit a plateau now and then.

To increase the 1 lb per week to 2 lbs per week, you need to lose 500 calories per day from where you are. You can't do that by eating less (you'd be down to 950 per day, which is a starvation "diet"). So, you'll need to exercise.

Also remember that the number of calories you will need in a day will decline even further as you lose weight. So, it would be wise now to get in the habit of exercising...since that will make it easier to keep the weight off once you reach your goal.

If you're bored with the treadmill, then do something you enjoy. Walk outside, go swimming, buy a hula hoop or a small exercise trampoline, buy a Zumba DVD, dance full out to music you love, do water aerobics, etc...there are all sorts of alternatives to treadmills. If you do something you enjoy, it will be much easier to stick with it.

its been about 2 monthes since i lost weight.. i started losing weight everyday that i weighed myself. im 28 years old. the only time i lost weight was in april but i was eating 200-800 calories a day because i was depressed (and i regained it).. for the rest of the time i eat 1450 or a bit less and like after 2 weeks or a month of not losing weight ive been going on binges out of frustration.. i think for whatever reason i cant lose weight without working out or starving and eating over 800 calories which i cant do because i like to eat. i will just start working out more which im sure will work and i will lower my calories. ive tried upping my calories a bit and having a cheat day to see if after when i go back to 1450 i will lose but i dont.

thanks for the replies gals

A couple of years ago I lost 50 pounds by eating 1,500 cals/day with no exercise, and I'm 56. I only started exercising after reaching my goal weight. How long have you been at it? I know everybody is different, but in your shoes I would persist with your current regimen for a few more weeks before drawing definitive conclusions.

F.

Just a suggestion....sometimes the longer we diet, the more liberal with our measuring gets. It can add up at the end of the day to maintenance calories and you don't even know it. Switch to WEIGHING everything and ditch the cups and see if that doesn't help.

I can tell you that I starting having problems in the 180s-190s with the weight slowing down substantially. I had tried to shoot for anywhere between 1200 and 1500 calories, but now I consistently have to eat around 1200. I cannot lose weight on anything more without exercise.

So it's up to you, you can lower calories or exercise more.

2 lbs a week is hard. That's a 1,000 calorie deficit a day. I think it's really hard to drop 2 lbs a week without exercising. I would either up the exercise or shoot for 1 lb a week instead. GL!

I just want to chime in to say that you don't have to do formal exercise. You can just make sure you're more active overall. Turn on some favorite songs on youtube and dance around. Do push ups, crunches, dumbell curls and planks at every commercial break on tv. Take stairs instead of the elevator and park as far as you can from your destination. I"ve heard that even fidgeting helps things.

Just be aware that you lose muscle along with fat when you don't exercise. Your heart is a muscle so that isn't a good thing. Also, exercise is mandatory for weight maintenance. Exercise also builds muscle. Muscle burns more calories than fat so you can eat more when you are maintaining. You need to do strength training for this. You don't need a gym. You can use a couple of soup cans for weights, get toning bands (less than $10 at Walmart), and there are tons of free exercise videos if you google them.

Just a thought that you mentioned you know you don't go over "about" 1450 daily but if you were being really strict with weighing/measuring your food, there would be no "about" to it, you'd know exactly.

You can lose weight without exercise. Exercise is about staying healthy & maintaining weight.

There are many ways to be active & you don't need to follow any specific type of exercise routine, just find ways of being active that you like & keep on the move. Life is more fun when you are an active person.

Good luck!

Not necessarily tracking calories is actually extremely difficult. Every banana or apple etc. is not the exact same size. When you use FitnessPal it is taking the average of what you are eating. So, no one knows exactly how many calories they are eating just the average.